I came into teaching with an essentially narcissistic desire to “inspire the youth of America” or whatever. Laudable as that is, the successive autumns began wearing the edges off my inner “rookie teacher.” In the end, this isn’t just a post about learning to wear professional “big kid undies.” It’s yet another role reversal: my students became unwitting sounding boards, while l myself assimilated more deeply the material they were tasked with learning. In short, the faith journey has shown me that curing depression is possible, but it involves skills many of us don’t use.
In a crowd of high school students, developing those skills is important work indeed. In my classes, the month of February tanks everyone’s moods. During one such dark stretch, my students attitudes were grey as the weather, and to turn a South Carolinian phrase, were seriously overcooking my grits. My normal tendency back then would have been to be harsh, to insist my kids leave their problems at the door, and dole out write ups to the non-conformists.
In the midst of this, Will Parks had a shitty week. He’d been irritable or disengaged in class. That wasn’t normal for him.
We never talked about this, but his emotional life tended toward brooding. In other lives—my own in particular—this was a sign of depression. I am none too pastoral with myself when I’m depressed; my first instinct with Will was to be just as harsh. Maybe it’s because I genuinely liked Will, I don’t know, but it occurred to me that I didn’t need to strong-arm him. After two days of Will being out of sorts, I greeted him at the door of school.
I looked at him squarely: “Will,” I said, “you’re never a hard student to deal with, and you have been for the last two days. Is everything alright with you? Is there anything I can do for you?”
Tears formed in the corners of Will’s eyes. He fought them back. “I’m sorry Mr. Warner.” As he said the words, he began to lose his composure. “Yesterday was the one year anniversary of my friend getting shot.”
Will's words silently knocked the wind out of me. I had, at least briefly, been angry with him. At his words, that anger cut through my inner back-alley of guilt and opened to heartfelt concern. I embraced Will, and he shed as many tears as he’d allow himself.
Before that day, I would have ignored all of the memes about everyone coming to class with struggles I know nothing about. After that day, I didn’t need reminding. As simple an emotional skill as empathy is, one would think it would come more naturally. I needed a student, in pain and willing to be vulnerable, to teach me.
Hilary Jones was this dynamic’s next best example. Natively quiet, one day Hillary came into her study hall period visibly agitated. I asked her if she needed to talk, she said she didn’t. Later she reneged, and as it was a study hall, I placed chairs for the two of us right outside the door, where I could keep watch on the class from the window. Among the many things she and I talked about that day, panic attacks and anxiety were her chief concern.
She said “Mr. Warner, sometimes when I have a panic attack at night, it feels like the bed is spinning.”
“I know how you feel,” I said. “I sometimes get anxious too. It’s been a long time since it was so bad that a room spun, but you’re not in the room spinning club alone.”
“How did you deal with that?” She asked.
“At first I didn’t deal with it.” I said, “I just hung on for dear life until things improved. One of the things I’ve learned more recently, though, is that anxiety is the mind’s natural response to my attachment to the evil thoughts.”
“Oh, wow:” Hilary responded, “just like we learned in class…”
“Yep, just like in class. Also, lately, life’s been trying to show me that my body’s purpose is to get me out of my mind, and at rest in reality again.” Hilary wore a quizzical look, so I continued: “When I’m anxious, if I am present to what my eyes see, what my body feels and my ears hear, it reduces anxiety. I have to be gentle for it to actually help the anxiety, instead of just forcing it underground, but it works.”
She and I continued our conversation, but, in that moment, the truth of my own words turned down its volume a little. I wanted to stay with the words. It struck me that my high-school-aged self could have used that advice, back when I first became acquainted with the routine heebie jeebies life doles out.
These would all have remained disparate bits of insight, were it not for another conversation with Will. He came to me while I was proctoring my study hall. In the back of my mind, I knew he was supposed to be in English. But he also looked visibly agitated, so I didn’t refuse when he asked to talk.
He talked in general terms about depression: how he was struggling with it, how he thought there was something wrong with him. When he reached a stopping point I said “Will, what would help you best? Do you want me to share feedback with you, or are you in a mood where you just need me to listen?”
“Naw, Mr. Warner, you can share whatever comes to mind. That’s why I came to you.”
“You talked about depression,” I said. “I’ve suffered from that my entire adult life. It officially blows. But I’m coming to see that the reasons for my depression aren’t my fault. First of all, some of it’s pure genetics. I’m a sad white guy, because being a sad white guy is in the genes.”
Will laughed. “There you go with the ‘sad white guy’ act again…”
“Oh it’s not an act. It’s autobiography, pure and simple. But listen: every one of us is wired to want things that are infinite. And the fact is, every single thing we’re surrounded by is disappointingly finite. Our spirits are built to last, but our bodies, all our loved ones, and everything we love about the world is two steps away from returning to dust. We forget it, but we’re destined to spend our days saying goodbye to one thing after another. Think of all the people you’ve loved and lost over the years. If we’re honest with ourselves, we’ve done more saying goodbye than saying hello. Denying that is part of the depression, and being wired for infinite life is the other. We expect the world to make us happy, and when it doesn’t we’re extra sad.”
Will Parks’ face reads like a book. I can tell when he’s troubled or happy. That day I could tell that whatever he heard had brought him some resolution. “Wow, that right there is a theology class on its own.”
Ralph Cain was the final piece. Ralph was a joker. My heart went out to the guy: as the “peace-keeping” middle child, I understood his shenanigans as more-than-likely borne out of insecurity: if Ralph was like me, humor was his way of negotiating social situations for which he felt unprepared.
Empathy notwithstanding, in two seconds flat, Ralph’s chicanery could derail a class. If I was being honest with myself, my tomfoolery could do likewise. I was slow in correcting Ralph at first, and my slowness correlated with an unwillingness to see my own humor as a problem. I was only able to correct this when I began to see my classroom as a task oriented zone, and my own humor for the distraction it was. Previous to correcting Ralph’s behavior, I had to set limits in myself that make for a well-run classroom.
I can’t vouch for the effect of my teaching on other people. But sometimes I manage to educate myself. With all of this swirling around in my head, I sat down and penned this last little bit.
Depression’s caused by thinking out of whack with reality.
Depression is a normal grieving of finiteness by beings with infinite longing.
My mind lies about others’ motivations.
At least in part, depression’s corrected by remembering:
Suffering is just pain I've not yet accepted. Curing depression consists in accepting its presence, not eradicating it.
Empathy is important, and frequent checking into the accuracy of my thinking.
Our bodies have a purpose: they’re tools we use to go out of our minds.
Serenity comes from feeling, hearing and accepting reality: nothing is permanent. Those who think so come to grief
In the end, our divine inheritance is words. My students, when they came to me saying their lives were chaotic, were doing what it took to find order again. In responding to them, I was re-finding it myself. There’s an ache between silence and speech, where the “shekinah” or weight of God finds bodily register. Turned in on itself, this becomes depression. Liberated, it gives rest: at least to the speaker, if not the hearer too. And finding ourselves playing both roles at once is a state of grace indeed.
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